[SBNation] Daryl Morey, Sam Hinkie and the Proper Way to Stockpile Assets

Philadelphia is going to love Hinke. I feel myself genuinely pulling for the Sixers.

 

People fail to realize that Morey got really really lucky.

Thank you for your VETO stern.

 

It's simple: Les forced Morey to do it this way. Credit goes all to Morey for figuring out a way that had NEVER been done before. But it took a huge opportunity opening up to do it, that being coming around to a perfect storm in OKC. Over there they had two things in combo which hit like a lightning strike: cap constraints for a relatively successful small market team; and three players in the top ten in the NBA without realizing it. In the end Morey's wild card will ALWAYS be his superiority in talent evaluation. So long as we maintain this edge on the rest of the league, we will continue to be competitive.

 

This is similar to Moneyball. Beane focused on players with high OBP because it was an undervalued asset and people mistakenly decided that moneyball was all about OBP.

Morey's strategy was more complex than people give credit for.

Edit: Also, for those who say Morey got "lucky" I argue that tanking requires a ton of luck. This was my argument all along against tanking. You have to get incredibly lucky for tanking to work. You need to hit on multiple high picks in consecutive years and you need those players to all have a good work ethic and mature at the same time.

Tanking doesn't work as consistently as people think.

 

Morey cleaned the house right before the Harden trade. Morey way was Hinkie way.
The not losing thing was mainly Les.

 

Didn't Morey prefer to tank?

 

Morey said it'd never been done before and alluded that it couldn't be done very quickly. Then he did it. Fast. Just call this strategy "The Morey".

 

This is true

 

I think so. That was the logical approach. Les, always committed to winning, demanded something else from Morey and he obliged. Made the undoable doable.

 

Morey did it the "Les" way the best he could.

Luckily "Basketball Reasons" helped catapult us into this longer and more fruitful destined path.

I believe few people could pull it off the Morey way and Sam Hinkie went into Philly knowing this.

 

He never made it clear whether he "preferred" it but he did make it clear that Les wouldn't let him.

I don't think teams should be trying to repeat what just happened here in Houston because it is not very likely to happen again where a star player like Harden gets traded one offseason and then the next a franchise player like Dwight is available.

Morey made it work, but it wasn't all him. If Presti had gambled on Harden this wouldn't have happened. If Buss had hired Phil this wouldn't have happened. If Parsons had been a jerk this wouldn't have happened. If he had been a scrub it wouldn't have happened. If the star player (harden) Morey got first turned out to be a selfish prick it wouldn't have happened.

This was really a perfect storm that Morey helped create, but it wasn't all things that a GM could control.

Edit: Morey does deserve credit though because he foresaw the CBA issues (talked about it a year before it became reality) and he was making moves to specifically gear up for the deals he pulled off. He's done moves 3 or 4 deep that have ended up with payoffs that nobody but himself saw coming.

 

this,

 

This.

I have no doubt that Morey would have blown it up after Yao left if given the chance. He's mentioned many times that they were going about rebuilding the hard way and that it was Les' call, and he obeyed Les' wishes.

Teams will definitely start to re-think rebuilding now. Finding and hitting on Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrooks in the draft seems to be the exception - better off creating cap room, building assets, and striking that way to get a known star.

 

Except the number of known stars that become available is very limited and it more teams are trying the Morey way than it will make it harder because there won't be junk teams tanking to send contracts to. It can't work as a repeatable strategy. It really can't.

 

Morey's plan will never be the norm. It takes too much patience forethought and intelligence. Plus a lot of luck and a decent market. Afterall even with Harden Dwight was never going to sign with Toronto. Houston appealed to Dwight enough. It wasn't LA and it wasn't New York but it was part of the second tier of favorable cities to play for.

So copying Morey's plan is nothing the league as a whole will start doing soon. But there are some things Morey does that other already emulate. Like dumping late firsts for early second rd picks and using your MLE on locking in second rounders to longer term deals. Morey still has some tricks the league hasn't caught onto. Like waiting for everyone to grab the free agents they want and then picking the best from the rest. That's why no signings for the room exception just yet. Morey is patiently waiting and then he will come out with a surprise signing at the end of the month.

 

Talent evaluation PLUS cap management. He rarely overpays and he loves giving non-guaranteed contracts. He drives a hard bargain.

I think we'll eventually trade Omer Asik at the trade deadline but only for the player/s we want.

 

It's truly been amazing the past couple of years watching Daryl make calculated decisions over and over again and always having the same goal, acquiring superstars, and competing for championships and to see it all come together so beautifully is the best part.

Us fans are the lucky ones, we always were excited to watch our teams because they never sucked, they always had heart, they always were competitive. And now we have James Harden and Dwight Howard!!!! Not to mention a possible star in the making in Chandler Parsons, a wildcard in Jeremy Lin who I think can still be an above average PG and is undeniably and above average 4th scoring option, and Omer Asik who could help us create the best defensive and rebounding front court in NBA or could easily be traded for a pretty penny!

I guess what im trying to say is I love you Daryl Morey, and now all the pressure is on the players to perform the way the can.

 

I don't think Morey ever really made any pro-tanking comments that I remember.

 

People forget that a lot of things happened just in time that made sure we did not have the chance of taking. People forget that Morey had just blown up the team trying to trade for Dwight Howard and failed. If the chance to get Harden never presented itself to Morey, we were fully ready to go in with a tie between Martin, Parsons, and Lin for top player on the team. Needless to say, that is by most accounts, a guaranteed lottery team. We WERE ready to tank. Getting Harden before the season started but a stop on that plan though and started us down a new path.